Next In Line: A Cake Series Novel

by J. Bengtsson

  I smiled. “How could I forget?”

  “Here’s the thing, Jess. I’ve had a lot of time to think about my uncomplicated girl policy, and I’ve come to the realization that I need complicated. I need you. Everything else will work itself out. Noah. My family. You stealing my favorite t-shirt. The point is we owe it to ourselves to see where this goes. In twenty years, do you want us to look back and wonder what if?

  “No,” I admitted. “I don’t want to live with regret. But it’s such a balancing act of doing what’s best for me and doing what’s best for him.”

  “So, what’s best for you?” he asked.

  I paused. Should I say it? Should I open up my heart to possible disaster? “You are, Quinn. Of course.”

  “And what’s best for Noah? You have a lot of photo frames over there with just the two of you. Are you willing to expand your twosome?”

  My heart fluttered at just the thought of what he was suggesting. The three of us, in a picture. A perfect little family.

  “I’m willing… with hesitation. Listen, Quinn, I know you can’t promise me a future. I get that, and I’m willing to take this chance on us if you at least promise me that you’ll be gentle with Noah’s soul. If you can promise me that one thing, you can do whatever you want to mine. I always survive.”

  He gripped my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair. “I will promise you that.”

  I stood up and took his hand. “Good. Now that we have that out of the way, come with me… and bring the guitar.”

  I stood with my back against the newly locked door, watching him with a predatory eye. I’d taken the liberty of changing into something more comfortable, which happened to be that damn Van Halen t-shirt he’d just accused me of stealing. The one I’d worn nearly every night since. He’d liked it so much the last time, I figured why mess with temptation?

  “What do you have under there, Jess?” His voice was husky and tipped with lust.

  “What I had last time.” I pulled on the hem, revealing a black lace thong and a matching bra.

  “You weren’t wearing those last time,” he said, near drooling. “I would’ve remembered.”

  Our eyes were locked in a battle of wits. Who would bend first? What did it matter? As long as we both got what we came here for, there would be no loser.

  “I want you,” he said feverishly.

  I stayed at the door, slightly arched so my breasts were prominently displayed. “Play for me.”

  “Nah. I want to play with you.”

  “Then play for me.”

  He sighed. “Fine. But guitar only so I don’t wake Noah.”

  I nodded, exposing some skin to show what awaited him once he upheld his end of the bargain. I didn’t need to tell him twice.

  “Wait.” I stopped him seconds after he began strumming the guitar. “Lose the shirt.”

  He smiled, shaking his head as he laughed softly, and stopped his plucking for only the amount of time it took to strip the shirt from his body. Holy hell, his chest was a thing of wonder, and used as the backdrop for the guitar, I could barely keep from touching myself. “Is that all you want me to lose?”

  I scanned my hungry eyes over him. “For now.”

  Quinn resumed strumming the guitar, playing a tune I’d never heard before.

  “Did you write that?”

  “I did,” he said, looking up from the strings. “For you, actually.”

  “For me? How do I know you don’t say that to all the girls?”

  “Because I don’t say it to all the girls. I wrote this song for you, whether you believe it or not. Now, why don’t you come over here… and lose the shirt.”

  I smiled, twirling a strand of hair, teasing. My feet moved forward, each step slow and deliberate. I stopped before we touched and lifted my shirt up and over my head, standing there before him in my lacey bra and panties.

  Quinn set the guitar down as I took the final step. He placed his hand on my stomach, peering up at me. “I don’t even know where to start. You’re so beautiful.”

  I tipped my head into his, my hair fanning out around us. His hand slid up my back, unhooking my bra and allowing my breasts to break free. His mouth circled one. Then the other. I reached around him, dragging my nails along his skin. Quinn tipped his head back and moaned.

  “Everything,” he said. “I want to look at you.”

  Hooking my fingers into the waistline of my panties, I eased them down past my hips until gravity took them the rest of the way. I was standing before him vulnerable and aroused. Quinn adjusted, his hardness straining. I throbbed, resisting the urge to touch him… to touch myself.

  “God, Jess,” he whispered, gripping my wrist and running his thumb along the underside of the delicate skin. “Where have you been all these weeks when I needed you?”

  His words, the need. Quinn’s lips skimmed my cheek, drawing a gasp as he placed tiny kisses along my skin until he arrived at my lips. He kissed me, his lips deliberate as they drew me in.

  My tongue circled around his mouth as I sank into him. With my legs straddling his waist, his stiffness was perfectly angled onto my sensitive spot. Slowly, I rotated my hips, and Quinn bit down on his lips, forcing the groan to remain silent in his throat. He grabbed my ass, pressing me down. I ground into him.

  He shifted, severing our connection as he picked me up and deposited us both onto the bed. Running his hands up my arms, Quinn gripped me tightly and pulled me under him. Propped up by his muscled arms, he hovered over me, the lust nearly dripping from his eyes.

  I was no tamer, my predatory instincts taking over.

  With little effort, Quinn was on top of me in an instant. My legs wrapped around him, aching for him to be inside. Neither one of us was in our right senses, nearly frantic with need. My fingers gripped his jeans, wishing I’d made the removal of them also a condition of his guitar playing. I dipped my fingers into his waistband and slid them down his slim waist. He’d come prepared for action, hard and wanting. Still hovering above me, he dipped his head, flicking his tongue over my lips.

  Already wildly aroused, I circled my hand around his hardness, giving him a tug. The groan that set forth required muzzling. We stopped, waiting, listening for a tiny spy, but when no sound came from the other side of the locked door, I squeezed harder, forcing Quinn to arch his back and silently scream with pleasure.

  “No,” he spoke in a ragged tone, pulling out of my grip. Heat radiated off him, quickening my own pulse. “First I want to see you squirm.”

  Every nerve ending in me was on high alert as those fingers of his dipped into my wetness. Now it was my turn to be muzzled as I plunged my head into the hollows of his neck, moaning behind closed lips. The pressure increased, and I was thrashing about. Too much of everything.

  “I can’t,” I squirmed, every nerve tingling; even my toes were curling. Panic. “Quinn. I can’t stay quiet.”

  Challenge accepted. He licked his way down, between my breasts, over my stomach, and then he was there, twisting me in place. The only way to stop his tongue from sending me into a high-pitched crescendo was to offer him the place between my legs, the spot throbbing for his company. I spread wide, trembling with anticipation.

  Quinn reached for the condom, his fingers replacing his tongue and never letting up until he was at my opening and forcing me open. Everything quaked. Anticipation. Longing. Pure animal attraction. His hands traced the curves of my hips as he slid into me, taking me slow and steady.

  "Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?" his voice dipped, his hands sliding to my breasts as he drew in then out.

  “I want you to do everything,” I hummed, rocking my hips upward in time with his, meeting each thrust with my own. The sultry slickness of his skin under my hands kept me busy while I devoured the feel of his heaving back as he breathed harder and heavier.

  I desperately tried to hold back the force brewing inside me, but his foreplay had deposited me right at the edge, and I wasn’t sure how much w
illpower I had left. Quinn drove deeper, the tempo of his thrusts growing faster and keeping in time with our breathing, until we both came in a shared climax, perfect in our harmony.

  “Tell me who you are, Jess,” Quinn said, breaking the silence with his simple question as we lay in bed afterward—me settled into the crook of his arm.

  It was clear Quinn was expecting a profound reply. But I wasn’t an enigma. I was just a girl—living.

  “I mean, I know you’re a cool chick. Adventurous. Quick-witted. Caring. But who are you really? What do you think about when you lay your head on the pillow every night?”

  That he cared to even ask set him apart.

  “Honestly,” I said as I turned toward him, “lately… you.”

  He smiled. “Obviously.”

  I agreed. “Obviously.”

  I got a kiss for my answer, but from the expectant look on his face he wanted more. Sighing, I answered his question. “I’m a girl who holds tight to what is hers.”

  Quinn studied me, absently sliding a strand of my hair though his fingers. “See, I knew you wouldn’t give me a generic answer. You’re too deep for that.”

  “I’m really not that deep. I want what everyone wants—to not lose the things I have.”

  “Like?”

  “Noah. My job. My family. My apartment.”

  “Me?” he asked presumptuously.

  I circled my finger over his chest. “Yes, and you.”

  A still fell over us. What was he thinking?

  “What about you, Quinn?” I asked, trying to coax him from his silence. “What do you think about when you lay your head on the pillow every night?”

  “What don’t I think about is a better question.”

  “You have a lot going on inside your head?”

  “Normally, it’s like a battlefield in there, but lately things have calmed down.”

  My heart pumped a little faster. Did I have something to do with this easing of the mind?

  “What’s changed?” I whispered.

  Quinn averted his gaze, fixating instead on the ceiling. “I don’t know. I feel different.”

  The teasing words spilled out before I could stop them. “Oh, my god. Please tell me you weren’t a virgin.”

  He laughed hard at that. “What part of today made you think that?”

  My body instantly reacted to his suggestion, especially with the finger that was now lazily trailing along my skin.

  “I’m kidding. Tell me,” I insisted. “How do you feel different?”

  The pause was so pronounced that I wasn’t sure he would answer… but I shouldn’t have doubted him. “With you, I don’t feel like I have to prove myself. It’s like a weight has been lifted from me. I can’t explain it, but that’s why I pursued you the way I did. It’s almost like I need you—in order to be me.”

  His answer hit me in the feels. He was a surprisingly introspective guy.

  “When we first met, Quinn, you said you wanted to be seen. I thought it was an odd thing to say because you’re such a big personality. Everyone is watching you, wanting to be like you. Yet you don’t feel that way about yourself.”

  “It’s just…” Quinn closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. Something I’d said hit a raw spot. “Never mind, I shouldn’t complain.”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  “Because I have nothing to complain about. I grew up never wanting for anything. My parents have a loving marriage. I was never abused or treated with disrespect. I don’t have the right to be wounded. Jake, he has the right. My parents, my brothers and sisters—they have the right. But me? Grace? No.”

  “You were there. That’s enough.”

  “But nothing happened to me.”

  “That’s not what the video showed. The kid looking into that camera was traumatized. That’s not nothing, Quinn.”

  I glided a finger along his face. “Has no one in your family ever acknowledged your suffering?”

  His body tensed, and it was then I knew it to be true—six-year-old Quinn had suffered in silence.

  I squeezed tighter and whispered in his ear, “Talk to me.”

  Quinn took another deep breath and then spilled. “No one told me what was happening, Jess. I had no idea that Jake had been kidnapped or even what that meant. All I knew was that Jake wasn’t there anymore, and the predictable life I was used to vanished in an instant. It was like someone flicked a switch. Good to bad. And no one bothered to explain to me why. I get it now. They didn’t want to scare us because we were so young. But what my imagination didn’t fill in, the kids at school graphically did. And figuring things out on my own was way more terrifying.

  “It had another effect too. I grew up feeling like I was on the outside of this exclusive club that the rest of my family belonged to—those who suffered versus those who didn’t. I still don’t think my family knows the damage it did to me. I was there the whole time, at their feet, but no one looked down and saw me. So now I feel like I have to be extraordinary to get their attention—which with a brother like Jake is near impossible.”

  I waited for Quinn’s frustration to settle before replying. “I’m looking.”

  He tipped my chin up and kissed me. “I know. That’s why I turned the world upside down to find you.”

  “Thank god you did. I needed you to fight for me because…” My voice faltered. “No one ever has. My parents never put me first. I felt invisible. Pushed aside. But despite that, I still try and hold on to the ones I love, even when they might not deserve it. I mean, you’ve seen my father. He verbally assaults me every time I visit him, but there I am, bringing him his favorite candy.”

  “But not his favorite cocaine.”

  “No,” I agreed. “Not his favorite cocaine. I know I should probably give up on him, but I can’t. I just can’t. And then there’s Andrea. Now, there’s a special kind of narcissist. She’s hated me my whole life because I was born. I mean that’s f-ed up, right? And the one time in my life when I really, really needed her, she turned her back on me. And yet I work for her now. All is forgiven, despite her never having apologized. And you know why? Because I’m afraid to lose one more person in my life.”

  Quinn considered my story for the longest time before his lip curled up on one side. “Jesus, Jess, you’re a fucking mess.”

  I laughed, smacking him in the chest. “You should talk.”

  Quinn pressed in closer, his lips brushing against mine as he whispered, “What if I promise not to leave you?”

  I thought about that for a moment, the novelty of what he was saying.

  “Then you’d be the first.”

  23

  Quinn: Just Right

  Jess was not a snoozer. I discovered that the hard way when her alarm went off at six thirty in the morning and she leapt out of the bed so fast I legit thought her apartment complex had caught on fire.

  “Uh… Jess? Should I drop and roll?”

  She tossed on her clothes from last night then tiptoed over to me, pulling her lush mane to the side.

  “Just one more kiss,” she said.

  Jess made that one kiss count, her soft lips against mine as her tongue took its lazy time. As far as I could tell, it was the only lazy thing about her.

  She stood back up, her expression pained. “Quinn, I really, really hate to do this to you, but you have to go.”

  I lay there nodding.

  “No. I mean right now.”

  “Like now now?”

  “Like two minutes ago now. Noah will be up soon. Listen, Andrea rescheduled my shift so I don’t work today. Give me like an hour and a half to get him fed and off to school, and then we’ll have the rest of the day to ourselves.”

  Following Jess’s lead, I was already out of the bed and dressing when she stopped mid-rush and said, “Please come back.”

  God, she was so gorgeous makeup-free with that hair cascading over her shoulders. I drew her in for a quick goodbye kiss.

  “I promise I will.
”

  “Good. Because I already can’t wait to see you again.”

  And just before she slipped out the bedroom door, Jess added, “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but you have two minutes to get your ass out of my apartment.”

  My ass was out of her place with a minute to spare. The last thing I wanted was make the situation awkward for any of us, so I ducked out of her front door and drove the ten-mile distance home.

  Once showered, I texted Tucker.

  It was only seven a.m., early in my world, but chances were that my energizer bunny manager would be awake at this hour.

  Got a minute? I asked.

  I’ve always got a minute for you.

  Damn. Everyone needed to get themselves a Tucker.

  Do you have recommendations for a good private rehab facility?

  Those dots danced on the screen for a long while only to receive a two-word reply.

  For you?

  What? Did he not know me at all?

  No, not for me. I barely fucking drink.

  Then I assume we’re talking about Brandon. I’ve already had a discussion with him about his drug use, and he’s promised to curtail it.

  And note to self: never discuss anything incriminating with Tucker.

  Okay. I can see I have to spell everything out in one long, detailed text before asking you anything of a sensitive nature. I want to get Jess’s father into a rehab facility.

  You could’ve just said that, he answered. And yes, I can help. I know of a good private facility but it’s not cheap.

  I know but I’m getting the money in from the record deal and royalties for that first song should be coming in soon too.

  Look, I’m not going to tell you how to spend money you don’t yet have but are you sure you want to do this? You just got back together with her. It’s a lot of money to spend if you don’t really know where it’s going.

  No offense but this is my money not yours. I’m sure.

  Again, lots of little bubbles. I waited. And waited.